‘Lean Shipbuilding’ has become a buzz-word in post-recession shipbuilding, not least in Germany’s Meyer Werft shipyard where this productivity-raising management tool was put to good effect in the delivery from their Papenberg facility of cruise ships AIDAblu, Celebrity Eclipse this year, and Disney Dream (the largest passenger ship ever built in Germany) late last year. Vital new orders from AIDA Cruises and NCL have guaranteed the shipbuilder at least a partial workload until 2014. New orders were won against fierce competition with price levels at the same level, according to Meyer Werft, as they were seven or eight years ago, even though the costs of raw materials like steel, copper and oil have risen sharply, leaving this shipyard to square up to the challenge of building quality cruise ships in the most cost-effective way: they claim the application of Lean Shipbuilding has helped them increase productivity by 50% in less than three years. Fitting out Cruise ... [More]